Festo, robotics inspired by nature

Festo is a company that has become known for its robots inspired by animals. The teams in this company use a lot of biomimicry, that is to say, they observe and take inspiration from nature to find solutions to their problems by designing robots. Festo is basically a company that develops and markets motion automation systems using pneumatic or electric energy. Thanks to this expertise in automation systems, they have been able to design a large number of animal-inspired robots such as bird robots, kangaroos, dragonflies, ants and many others.

• SmartBird

Robot bird inspired by the silver seagull, this bird robot has perfect aerodynamics and maximum agility, it takes the principle of flying a bird. This robot is able to take off, fly and land like a real bird. Servomotors provide wing flapping and a permanent diagnostic system measures the position of the wings and the battery during the flight.

• Robotino

A robotic arm inspired by the horn of an elephant, allowing to have a flexible arm with a clamp to grab fragile objects of various shapes without destroying them.

• BionicKangaroo

It is a kangaroo robot that makes the movement of a kangaroo jump. It recovers energy on the fly, storing it and reusing it on the next hop. This robot intelligently combines pneumatic and electric drive technology to develop a highly dynamic system.

• BionicOpter

It is a robot inspired by the flight of the dragonfly, which is ultralight, able to move in all directions of space, to move in gliding flight without flapping wings and stay in hovering place. This dragonfly robot can also be remotely controlled to control its flight attitude in space.

• FlexShapeGripper

It is a robot that is inspired by the language of the chameleon, which wraps its prey to catch an insect and eat it. Inspired by this language of chameleon, Festo has designed a robotic arm whose gripper can grab all kinds of objects, at the same time and drop them together.

• eMotionButterflies

They are robots inspired by butterflies, can fly following predefined trajectories in a space equipped with infrared cameras, and can fly at 2,5 m / s for 3 minutes before being recharged. These robots are ultra-light and have an anti-collision system that allows them to fly safely.

• BionicANTS

They are ants robots, they have the form of ants but they can cooperate together to perform a complex task.